New York City

After setting a new Australian distance record for the kilometres walked from the arrival gate to the baggage claim I hoped a cab and headed off into the wilds of downtown Manhattan. Arriving about 9.30am local time I checked my bags, grabbed some breakfast and went off forth on my first adventure in the big apple. 

I had always intended on picking up a stray for this leg of my journey and waiting for me in New York was an old mate Martin. He will be my travel buddy for the next 4 days before he heads off to Philadelphia, on to Washington and then back home to Sydney. He wanted to do one of the four big observation platforms being the One World Trade Centre, The Empire State Building, Rockefeller Plaza, or The Edge (recently opened in 2020 and the only one I hadn't done previously). It turned out that The Edge was only about two blocks away so we headed off, paid our $55 US admission and rode up the 100 stories to its observation deck. 

I learned several things while I was up there. Firstly and most surprisingly Martin is a Grade A coward when it comes to height. He barely made it out the door to the deck. Once on the deck there is a set of stairs you can ascend that gives you the impression there is nothing between you and New York City because its top is considerably higher than 2.7 metre high glass fence that surrounds the deck. The second thing I learnt was that he is not as tight as he used to be, as to celebrate our arrival we toasted the city with two glasses of French Champagne.

Even after the heart starter Martin couldn't be encouraged back out onto the cantilevered deck. I don't know why it is only 345 metres from the ground up.  The fact that the deck juts out 24 meters from the building and there is a 21 square metre section that is a window to the ground didn't help in the encouragement stakes either. 

Having safely regained terra firma we wandered onto the High Line. Now The High Line was a now disused railway track that had been used to transport goods into the city. It travelled along much of Tenth Avenue and was known as a death trap with the freight trains killing hundreds on pedestrians. To combat this they established The Westside Cowboys who rode horses in front of the trains waving red flags. The advent of better trucking saw the railways ultimate demise and after many years of neglect and having become overgrown with plants and weeds it was transformed into this oasis in the city. 1.4 miles of repurposed rail corridor that lets you traverse the 2 1/4 kilometres from West 34th Street to Ganevoort St away from the chaos of the city while admiring beautiful art, architecture and gardens.

From there it was off to the Whitney Museum to take in some original Warhol's and many other fine pieces of art. It was now time to check in and after a quick shower and a shave we set forth to The Empire Steak House and enjoyed one of the best meals I think I've ever had. After dinner wand walking back to the Apartment my aching feet and level of tiredness hit me. I had now been awake for over 30 hours and the land of nod was calling. Eleven hours sleep later and I was ready to get up and do it all again. 

On Leaving Hawaii

I really enjoyed Hawaii right up until the hours before I had to leave. I got my Uber to the airport and rolled in the luggage where everything was automated. It was clear that my luggage was too heavy and would not pass screening. I joined the oversize baggage queue to be told even though my ticket stated that I was allowed 2 by 32kg in bags once I hit stateside that it dropped back to 1 by 20kg bag. The solution was simple, pay another $100 US and all would be forgiven.

My wallet suitably lightened I ventured further into the airport and was advised that the plane would be delayed and that it left from a different gate. Along with my fellow travellers we traipsed to the next gate only to be told to change gates again. It was here we finally boarded leaving over an hour late. 

That was all ahead of me though. Between checking my bags and boarding the plane I still had to traverse the dreaded TSA and its often invasive checks. Despite having no belt and no shoes and nothing in my pockets my crotch still seemed to set off the scanner. So out came the rubber gloves and I am given the option to go somewhere privately or get the treatment out in the open. I went with option B. No longer needing a colonoscopy I headed for the gate and the plane and for my 9.5 hour flight to NYC. The Hawaiian staff while perfectly agreeable but did not hold a candle to my inbound crew. The meals were great, the drinks were plentiful and there was much to be amused by using the inflight entertainment. 

What there wasn't was internet or a lie flat bed. So its goodbye Honolulu and hello the Big Apple. 

Pearl Harbor 2

Allowing myself the luxury of 7.30am sleep in I indulged in the hotel buffet breakfast then jumped an Uber back to Pearl Harbor. Having sorted out the lay of the land previously I went straight to the shuttle bus and headed for the Top of the Tower to catch some mighty views of Pearl Harbor and its surroundings. There, an educated chap named Brian showed me where the two waves of Japanese fighters attacked from. He followed up by showing the location of the 100 or so capital ships that were anchored in the harbor that day and which of them made up the 20 or so damaged and sunken ships that were in the mix of things that day.

While I visited the control tower as part of the tour we did most of the tour on what was an old water tower that wasn't completed until 1942. 

From there I quickly joined the hangar tour where we taken through an array of war birds that had a connection to Pearl Harbor plus a smattering of other famous aircraft. There was even an old F1-11 there in Australian trim. The tour guide was excellent and had spent 4.5 years in Australia, specifically in Alice Springs. Her husband is a cryptanalyst. I quickly had her admit that she and he had both worked at Pine Gap. She was quick to note that was something she didn't admit to all that often when she was in the land of Oz. We both shared a laugh and she further admitted she even enjoyed the Midnight Oil song Power and the Passion even though she had first heard it well before knowing what it was really about. 

There was a piece of the Arizona on display and dummies of the armour piercing bomb used to sink it and another dummy of the type of torpedo used to sink the Utah and Oklahoma. There were examples of the Japanese planes used and a sample of one of the two American aircraft that actually made it off the ground on December 7th. On top of that they had an F14, and F15, and F16 and a Blue Angels F18 also on display along with about 40 other aircraft. The one aircraft I would have liked to have seen is the Catalina Flying Boat. There were close to 20 of them stationed in Honolulu on December 7th and most of them were wiped out. These aircraft were quite famous in Australia and were based at Rose Bay in Sydney Harbour and at Rathmines on Lake Macquarie. 

Well while can not have too much war buff stuff it was time to head back to the hotel for cocktails and canapes. Tomorrow is a free day. I may try and get up to "The Punchbowl" and Diamond Head. At the very least I will just take a walk along Waikiki Beach and put my feet in the other side of the Pacific Ocean. With not much going on I think my next post will be "Live From New York". In another attempt to mess with my head I get on a plane in Honolulu at 3,30pm, fly 9.5 hours to New York and arrive at 7.00am Saturday morning. My body clock is going to require another trip to the repair shop. 

Pearl Harbor 1

After what was a pleasant afternoon nap I kept close by to the hotel  for dinner because I know I have to be up tomorrow at 5.30am for the shuttle to Pearl Harbor. I dined at a upscale pizza place owned by three Brazilians. There was so much cured meat and so much Brazilian cheese that I can now honestly say there is a pizza with too much meat and too much cheese.  It was divine. Decent wine is a bit hard to come by here so I was pleasantly surprised to find a nice Italian Pinot Grigio following it with a Californian Cab Sav.

It was an early night for me with my body clock needed some time n the repair shop because before you knew it my alarm was calling and I was time to go to Pearl Harbor.

After a drive by tour of Honolulu including the statue made famous from the credits from Hawaii Five O it was on to the Harbor. 

The first thing that shocked me about the Arizona Memorial was not the sense of awe, respect, humility and reverence that I've felt elsewhere at other memorials but how poorly maintained it was. Uncut grass, edges needing doing, missing tiles, shoddy cleaning and patchy paint work. I know this is a large site and it suffers from the salt air but it really needed some love and attention. Now I don't know if this is a result of budget cuts, labour shortages or just poor management but it made for a disappointing impression. 

Setting that aside we made for the pre briefing theatre before embarking on a tender to the Arizona Memorial itself. I spent my time there trying to ignore the filthy air returns and duct outlets and before long we were on our way. You are given ten minutes on the memorial itself. While there is not a lot to see it was hardly enough time to take in that 1,177 lives had been lost here on 7th December 1941. The most profound sight was the "oily tears". This is the release of oil from inside the Arizona itself. You can see the slick leading out to the ocean. They say the tears are the ship and it deceased crew crying from the loss on that fateful day. 

Before long we were back on the mainland and off to Ford Island where the famous battleship USS Missouri is moored. The Missouri has had quite a time of it. It saw action in the last year of WWII and is famously where the General Douglas Macarthur accepted the Japanese surrender. It served in the Korean War and was brought out mothballs for the Gulf War. While not covered in any of the tours I saw, or on any of the interpretive signage around the ship itself, it is of course the ship made infamous in Cher's music video for her 1989 hit If I Could Turn Back Time. I don't think the 16 inch guns she was sliding around upon have ever recovered.

I spent a good couple of hours pouring over this ship from the bridge to the main deck and then the below decks. I could have easily spent an entire day here. This is now in the hands of a private organisation that maintains it, considering its size and its age they sure do have their work cut out for them. 

Anyway that's enough from Pearl Harbor today. Tomorrow I return to check out the aviation side of the equation. 

I'm Now Officially Old

Well the drive from Gulgong to Sydney Airport was relatively uneventful. A little bit of rain and one missed turn because I decided to do it with out the GPS and didn't see the sign in the mist. Check in went smoothly, all the staff at Hawaiian Airlines have been great. The lounge at Sydney airport left a bit to be desired, however it was all very much first world problems. Boarding was unexceptional, the flight left on time and arrived in Honolulu on time. The lay flat bed let me get about 5 hours sleep, which is more than I sometimes usually function on. The meals were excellent and the service attentive. So why am I officially old? My seat mate for the 9.5 hour trip was a perfectly pleasant woman who worked on the tech side of eCommerce and for the briefest of exchanges made every weary bone in my body cry out in unison. After some ever so brief pleasantries and a quick chat about her flying on to LA and me laying over in Honolulu for five days before flying to New York and then jumping on a cruise. Her first question to me. "Are you retired?" So needless to say my ego was somewhat bruised and while I could put it down to the fact that I did tell her I was cruising, it is probably more indicative of the fact that I am in my 60th year and there are more years behind me than in front of me. With that sobering thought I finished my Pinot Grigio, stretched out the seat to a full recline and slept until about 90 minutes before we landed. 

So its 30 degrees here in sunny Honolulu.  I'm staying at the Prince Waikiki and I've got say the hotel is great. They let me check in early, I've got a harbour front room that sits directly in front of the harbour and the ocean. There is plenty of room for my luggage and so a few moments getting organised and I was ready to sally forth to the Honolulu Lawn Bowls Club (about a mile away). You can see by their about page it was actually founded by an Aussie, Dr Richard Ebsworth and built by Australian servicemen just prior to the second world war. I can find no further trace of the good Doctor online however Aussie's are a rash all over this establishment. It seems there was a party of twenty bowlers who attended in 2023 from the Halekulani Bowling Club (owned by Mounties). Reading through some of their old newsletters it seems that we Aussies have started a tradition of streaking across the green at the end of the tournaments they play in. Thank God I won't be bowling. I will call in tomorrow and drop off a shirt and stubby cooler and make their acquaintance. Then I'll push on to the Bishop Museum, apparently its full of dinosaurs.  

I finished my first night in Honolulu by blowing the budget at Chart House. Here I had a most agreeable Sauvignon Blanc, and out of this world Cabernet Sauvignon from the Napa Valley, and a shot or two 16 year old Lagavulin. The meal consisted of Ahi Sashimi (which is Hawaiian for "fire" named for the yellow tuna and how fast it moves through the water) followed by a rib eye fillet. All perfectly agreeable. Now its time for bed ready for the old to have a big adventure tomorrow. 

The Magical Whisky Tour Goes Fo(u)rth

Its been a few years since I posted to this account. I can see reading back that quite a few things have changed in my life. When I kicked this off 13 years ago I had just buried my mother, divorced my first wife (there is a trend developing I fear) and got to my weight down to 100kg from the ever so chunky 150kg. I was heavily into my geek life building computers, playing keys in a couple of bands, working with a couple of singers and doing a bit of studio work. Come 2025 I find myself in Lightning Ridge, divorced again (I will be getting good at it soon), and now I'm chunkier than ever. 

Its been an intense couple of years where I have kicked some goals professionally, hopefully made some serious strides towards improving my superannuation. It seems the clock keeps ticking and you have to plan for that stuff now (who knew?) Also help set up the Club I am proud to manage for a long and prosperous future. 

 

So in celebration of my newly won singledom, to pat myself on the back for a few solid years of work and to hopefully de stress after a few hectic years I'm off again. This time I head to Honolulu for a few days where I will check out all the Pearl Harbour war memorabilia, visit a Dinosaur Museum and then kick on to New York where I will catch up with a buddy from Australia conducting his own odyssey through the good ol' US of A. After New York the seven seas are calling and I will embark on a 33 day cruising adventure.

After leaving New York it is on to Miami, Cartagena, Colombia. From there we traverse the Panama Canal and on to Peru where we stop at two ports of Lima and San Martin. From there we head to Easter Island where there is a small chance we will get to go ashore. Then we head to Pitcairn Island, home of the Bounty mutineers. We stop at two ports in French Polynesia, Papeete and Moorea, then across the international date line and stop in Auckland, New Zealand. From there its back to Sydney and the oh so short drive to "The Ridge". 

Americans Can Finally Make Decent Coffee

My morning started way too early with the alarm going off at 6.30am (that's 2.30am home time) and me trudging down to the hotel buffet. The filter coffee on offer was its traditional atrocious best. I reluctantly sipped on it while awaiting my hand prepared omelette. Starvation averted for another day I headed off into downtown Honolulu and took in the sites. The American city is very much built around the automobile. I passed shops advertising all the big US brands; Bloomingdales, Macy's and Walmart just to name a few. None of them accessible from the street. These were just signs advertising their parking garages. Craving a decent coffee Dr Google told me there was a cafe called Ali'i Coffee Co. with a 4.6 star rating near me. I ventured in and they even had a "flat white" on the menu, an unheard of indulgence in this part of the world. What can I say but the coffee was excellent. Many things have changed since my last visit here but the one change for the better is drinkable coffee.  

I headed across the Honolulu Lawn Bowls Club where the members were out in force readying themselves for todays play. I met with Randy who was preparing the green and Club President Tamy. We traded gifts and had a quick chat about the number of Aussies who had played at the Club over the years. There were Australian club flags displayed all over the clubhouse. Their four day barefoot bowls tournament in February is when things hot up and the international visitors roll in. After some pleasantries I made my escape and headed off to the Bishop Museum to check out their dinosaur exhibition. 

The Bishop Museum seems to play a significant part in curating Hawaii's heritage. A few people I spoke to seemed to imply that it had become too political. The fierce independent streak you see in many parts of the US is also to be found in Hawaii. The monarchy was essentially overthrown in the 1890's when it then became a state of America. Like Texas, Hawaii had been its own country and there is still some resentment about this still not being the case in parts of the indigenous population. However I wasn't here for the politics, I was here for the dinosaurs so I headed to the Castle Memorial Building and was swamped, firstly by kids and secondly by animatronic dinosaurs, all twisting and turning and waving their tales and roaring as I walked by. And that was just the kids. Along with the animated models they had digital sandboxes, fossils to unearth, specimens to analyse and a helicopter (?). Who knew I thought they were a much more recent invention. 

Anyway this was all very diverting and the kids (and quite a few of the adults) were having the time of their lives. However my body clock is still a little out of whack and my bed was calling for an afternoon nanna nap. Sweet dreams everybody. Tomorrow its time for the fun stuff, its out of bed at 5.30am. I'm off to Pearl Harbor to play with the big boy toys and do all the war buff stuff.  

Aloha.